Tuesday, November 15, 2016

C.F.D. Moule on the Nature of Scripture

Scripture is so precious to me that I have read it through from cover to cover scores of times, missing not a day in 50 years without steady reading. I hope that it is now clear why this is so. I do not believe that Scripture is infallible; I question the value of the language of inspiration for describing its distinctive qualities; I believe (as I have shown) that Scripture itself, and the fact that it is an accredited selection, need to be critically examined and sifted like any other matters of antiquity. But, precisely because it does constitute the body of documents most directly concerned with the impact of those events which culminated (so I read the evidence) in Jesus and the Christian movement, it constitutes (as a whole and taken in its entirety) a mirror held up to the face of God. And unless we gaze daily in that mirror we are deprived of the most vital agent in our access to God through Jesus Christ. That is why the Bible is indispensable and uniquely precious. But without the Spirit of God to nerve me to face, to respond to, and to obey that awesome presence, and to bind me to my fellow-seekers for our mutual help and encouragement in this activity, all the study and labour would be worse than useless. This is how I understand both the distinctiveness of Scripture and the relation to it of a doctrine of the Spirit.- C.F.D. Moule; Forgiveness and Reconciliation; 224; italics mine.